The Later Life of the Diabetic Amputee: Another Look at Fate of the Second Leg

Abstract

Studies were made of sixty-seven diabetic patients who had lost one leg to gangrene. At the time of the study, forty-seven were dead and twenty lived. Only five patients inthe former group and four in the latter had lost their “second leg.” Early death from the effects of a generalized arteriosclerotic process accounts for the small number of double amputees. A diabetic amputee will probably lose his life before he loses his “second leg.”